The Hoefling House

2019 People’s Choice Award Winner

The homeowner wanted something bold and unique for his home. He asked that it be warm in its material palette. strongly connected to its site, and deep green in its performance. This modern home’s design reflects a carefully crafted balance between capturing mountain views and passive solar design. On the ground floor, interior Travertine tile radiant heated floors flow out through broad sliding doors to the white concrete patio and then dissolves into the landscape. The sleek kitchen has a quick connection to the BBQ, the raised-bed garden, and small fruit tree orchard outside. Follow the floating staircase up the board-formed concrete tile wall. At the landing your view continues out over a ‘live roof.’ The second floor’s 14ft tall ceilings open to giant views of the Flatirons and towering trees. Clerestory windows allow in high light and create a floating roof effect as the Doug Fir ceiling continues out to form the large eaves; the homeowners protected the house’s large windows from overheating by creating an enormous cantilevered hat. The upper floor has a bedroom on each end and is centered around the spacious family room where music is the main activity.

Retrofit Net Positive Home

The house was built in 1954. It was not oriented for solar gain. In the sixty years the tree- scape has matured. At the outset, computer models using shade analysis predicted the homeowners would be able to harvest 5% of their consumption. They saw these challenges as opportunities to demonstrate what is possible given persistence. Aiming for their goal to be independent of the electric grid as much as possible, the homeowners hired local solar company Independent Power Systems who designed and installed a grid-connected-yet-fully-off- grid-capable power system. Essentially, it’s a microgrid. The house is directly powered by the solar panels. There are high-efficiency SunPower panels on the southeast and northeast sides of the roof. Solar energy not immediately consumed by the home is stored in a 32kWh Blue Ion battery bank for use at night and during inclement weather – and any time solar energy is not keeping up with the house load. When the batteries are full, the excess energy will flow to the grid earning us Renewable Energy Credits and providing our neighbors with clean energy.

Connectedness House

The Hudson Residence is a renovation of an existing ranch house, originally built in the early 1960’s, and extensively added on to in 1992 resulting in a tri-level living space with an attached garage. During the 2018-2019 renovation, the roof structure and foundation walls required major repairs. Since the overall ceiling height throughout the interior spaces was, on average, less than 8 FT, the immediate attention went into “blowing up” the roof structure and to revising the roof lines, into a butterfly roof shape. The most important was to modernize the layout with openness and connectedness to both 3rd street, the neighbors, the view up to Mount Sanitas, and the city from the rear half of the structure. Deep roof overhangs serve several functions of which one is to provide the necessary shading during the summer months. The appropriately-located high-efficiency windows, radiant in-floor heating, high-efficiency ductless mini-split cooling, generous insulation (including in-between rooms), LED fixtures, low VOC adhesives and paints, low- maintenance landscaping with programmable irrigation, make up the environmentally preferable systems.

Elk Ridge Lane

The Elk Ridge Lane house was owner-designed and owner-built in 1994. A primary design objective was resource efficiency. The home showcases the power of small, the effectiveness of passive solar, and the importance of owner participation. The home is designed to be aesthetically pleasing, functionally big, and able to serve a family of four (5 at times) while being as small as possible. Passive solar provides most of the heating needs. A small wood stove (fueled by local wildfire mitigation projects) provides seldom-needed back-up heat. The homeowners achieve high performance by reinventing habits and working as a team with the house. Water is heated via small volume, custom, batch solar water heaters. Total household energy use is 9.2% of the average Colorado home (not including PV generation). The home produces more than twice the energy than it consumes. Effective carbon emissions from household utilities are 131% less than the Colorado average. The Elk Ridge Lane home enables tried and true minimalism and extreme simplicity.

Terresen Estate

Terresen Estate is a luxury home constructed with two-foot thick Rammed Earth walls. This modem residence is a single level, sprawling ranch with floor to ceiling glass, exquisite textural finishes, high end fixtures, dramatic cantilevered overhangs, and is adorned with stunning oversized custom glass doors. With four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a library, and theater room, Terresen is sized for comfort and intimacy, though large enough for entertaining, with guest suites and an enormous oversized garage with full satin glass overhead doors. An open floor plan joins the living room and dining area with a large chef’s kitchen complete with Viking Pro series appliances and contemporary lighting. This home was designed with sustainability and energy efficiency in mind with passive solar thermal moss, on active solar grid and a radiant floor heating system throughout. A few minutes from downtown Boulder, Terresen sits in a perfect, quiet nook of Boulder County backing to farm land, a small lake and easy access to Boulder, Longmont and Denver.

The Ned Shed

The “Ned Shed” is a recently completed home designed and built by Fuentesdesign Architects outside of Boulder, Colorado. The 2000 sf, 3-bedroom ski & bike getaway has epic views overlooking the Colorado Continental Divide, the local ski resort, and Barker Reservoir. A 32” imported lift and slide door allows the occupants to be ever-present and constantly connected to the environment that surrounds them. The all-electric home (no gas to the site) is powered by a 10kW photovoltaic solar electric system, with an additional off grid solar electric domestic hot water system that provides hot water as well as radiant in-floor heating. With a HERS rating of (-13) the home is modeled to have no monthly utility bill (besides the $5 grid connection fee) and could create enough extra power to drive an electric car around 5000 miles per year for free. With 16” thick walls, imported certified passive house triple glazed R-10 windows, and careful air sealing of all exterior surface areas to passive house standards, this house is never cold in the winter.

Sugarloaf Outcrop

Located on the eastern slope of Sugarloaf Mountain outside of Boulder, Colorado, the Sugarloaf Outcrop residence was inspired by the unique climbing culture prevalent throughout Boulder’s canyons, and of which our client is enthusiastically part of. The clustered forms of the residence express the client’s young dynamic family, the desire to live simply on the land and to have little impact within the mountainous environment. The orientation of the site allows for the home to be a passive solar structure with specifically sized roof over-hangs. The insulated exposed concrete floors act as thermal mass. The site offers a panoramic view with the plains and Boulder Valley to the East, the Boulder’s Front Range to the South, and Sugarloaf Mountain to the West. With the client’s growing family, the organization of the structure was designed to allow for an upper floor and lookout roof terrace to be added in the future.